2 from St. Louis area on short list for Mars

Fri, 10 Jan 2014 13:52:22 GMT —

Human settlement on Mars is a long way away, but two St. Louis-area residents are on the short list to be among the first settlers of the Red Planet.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 29-year-old Maggie Duckworth of Bridgeton and 26-year-old Tim Gowan of University City are among the 1,058 initial candidates chosen from a pool of 200,000 who applied for a one-way trip to Mars as part of the privately funded Mars One mission.

The odds are still slim for both. Just four people will be on the initial launch slated for 2024. Four more people would be sent every two years after that. Duckworth and Gowan would both have to pass a rigorous selection process, and the Mars One project itself faces numerous hurdles.